Blog Comments & Posts

I’m sure a lot of you guys have looked into curation and all the lovely softwares available, like Curata and Curation Soft. Obviously with the radically different price points they all do different things, but here’s the gist – a whole lot of this you can do for free. And I have total faith that anyone within the Moz Community can handle this and then some. Heck, I’d ...

Here's a sample from Curation soft - a popular curation software. The deal is to provide multiple resources with minimal unique content/editorial notes. So if you were to create a curated post each day or so then people interested in that topic will view your site as a resource on that topic.

http://curationsoft.com/why-social-marketing-is-so-important-to-seo/

Or take this sample from Dempsey Marketing - http://dempseymarketingcontent.com/ - For this page the head of Dempsey Marketing just picks out one quality content piece and then adds his notes on it.

It's a way to stay on top the news of your industry, provide popular content and save yourself some time in the process :)

To be perfectly frank - my goal when doing curation is to keep my feed consistent. For me (and I feel a lot of people) consistency is the toughest part of social media. You simply can't spend 3 hours one day and leave your feed for a month until you feel like doing it again.

This way I set aside time to keep my feed active each business day. Then, when the mood does strike me or I do have more time for genuine interaction I am more effective because people have seen my image consistently.

That and it fuels the rest of my business as I mentioned in the post. In fact, a couple weeks back I was called into a last minute meeting at my local BBB. They asked me a question about content marketing and I was able to refer to an article in Forbes I had read just that morning. This greatly impressed these industry outsiders who wouldn't know the difference between a blog and a backlink. So on that day my curation was a lifesaver :)

Definitely! I also suggest using Google alerts for reputation management. I have it set up to my name which is great because I end up being notified when my syndicated stuff goes live as well. I guess that would depend on how unique your name is though....

Haha, I wouldn't know. I just got an email that said "we're posting your Youmoz in one hour" so it's not like I had any control over it :) You can always set up a Google alert or keep an eye on the @SEOmoz stream for the quickest updates.

I hear ya! We do a lot of work within the financial industry and you do have to spot check pretty well.

For financial clients I suggest focusing on their persona more than anything. Some financial companies want to appeal to a younger audience, whereas others want to hone in on old money.The best way to increase conversions for this type of industry (or any for that matter) is to have a crystal clear picture of their ideal client.

Content marketing is good for EVERYBODY but especially in the financial industry you can instantly build authority by having an overwhelming amount of content. Think of it like walking into a huge personal library. The chances the person actually read all those books is low... but the impression they give by having books around make you feel like they are smart.

For a lot of financial industry clients it's not so much that they want to know what you are doing - just that they want to know you know what you are doing. We have one client that the analytics are hilarious, more often than not people that convert are the same people that only scroll 30-40% of 2-3 pages. With clicktale you can see that they are literally going "Yup, yup... okay this person seems good. I'm ready" and they purchase. I've honestly never seen that with any other industry.

If you are doing content in-house I suggest you find a group of solid utility writers (who will charge less but can handle the research) and then pay an editor with financial industry experience. That will be your most cost effective solution. We have enough volume that I use all my regular people and then we pay a CPA to spot check items for us. The extra consulting fee is more than worth it to get it right the first time!

Absolutely :) These are great. When I set up a new writer I tend to fill up a feed.ly account for them with the right set of blogs to detract from. That's insanely helpful when you are first starting out in a new industry. For example - when we interview a new client for a Voice Document we always ask about their favorite industry sites or magazines so we know what's what :)

This is great stuff. Conversions really are all about talking to the right person at the right time. This is insanely comprehensive - thanks for putting this all together!

I find a lot of our clients don't understand how to segment their audience properly. For example, I work with fabric store that wanted to promote things like their knitting class. It took many "soft pitch" meetings to get them to the point of targeting younger girls interested in knitting more than older ladies.

Their response - "Our classes are full of women over 80"

My response - "80 year old ladies aren't online, young girls are online."

They finally relented for a dual campaign, within 6 weeks their rosters were full. And then we came full circle and our content marketing campaign targeted both young ladies and daughters of old ladies. In the end - a whole lot of knitting got done!

It's definitely interesting to hear about this from a buyer's perspective. Since I run a content generation firm (forgive the shameless plug) I am usually coming at this from the writer's perspective. We use a voice document that covers both the audience and style guide issues. If I was more organized I could link to the White Board Friday about voice documents but I am sure someone else will find it.:)

One thing that might help when you are searching for content providers is to wait and see what their process is like. For example, I have won many bids by initiating questions like those found in our voice document. This lets the client know that I am interested in providing the right content for their audience.

Call it trickery or a litmus test, whatever you want. Find unique ways to "test" your writers before you go whole hog. One thing I do when hiring new writers is to ask for a paid sample after initial contact. They email me for a job with a resume. I then turn around and ask for a sample post of 300-400 words about a topic that is appropriate for their experience. I tell them I want something fresh, and I even provide some time limits.

I pay them $15 for the sample, which is slightly below what they would be paid for regular work. That might sound crazy but this has been a goldmine of information for me. Here are the things I learn about the person by doing it this way:

~ I get a sense of their current writing style... not something they wrote 2 years ago.

~ I get a sense of their initiative by how quickly they produce the sample.

~ I get a sesnse of their communication style by seeing if they send me a "Great! I'm on it" or "I will have this to you by tonight" email. Bonus, if they do send me one of those emails I see if they keep their word.

~ I don't have to worry about those that don't reply. For me, cutting the fat is always the biggest job.